The inventive concepts described herein relate to a semiconductor memory system, and more particularly, relate to a memory controller capable of changing partial data in a memory device and a partial data changing method thereof.
A semiconductor memory device is a memory device which is fabricated using semiconductors such as silicon (Si), germanium (Ge), gallium arsenide (GaAs), indium phosphide (InP), and so on. Semiconductor memory devices are classified into volatile memory devices and nonvolatile memory devices.
An error may arise when data is stored at a memory device and stored data is read from the memory device. Various error correction codes may be used to detect and correct such errors. The error correction codes may include an RS (Reed-Solomon) code, a BCH (Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem) code, an LDPC (Low Density Parity Check) code, and so on.
When data is stored at a memory device, parity bits for error correction may be stored at the memory device together with the data. In the even that data stored at the memory device is partially changed, all data stored together with parity bits may be read out to generate new parity bits. This may mean that a data read time and power consumption increase.